The Curve
by Threesmallcrows
Summary: The day the Red King ordered Yata to take dating lessons from Saruhiko Fushimi was the most embarrassing day of his life. That is, until the lessons themselves started.
1. When Humiliated

The day Suoh Mikoto ordered Yata to take dating lessons from Saruhiko Fushimi was the most embarrassing day of his life.

That is, until the lessons themselves started.

()

Izumo Kusanagi, owner of the HOMRA bar, second in command to Mikoto Suoh, and widely considered the smartest member of the gang, put the freshly-polished glass down on his gleaming bar and said, "Call me crazy, but it might not be such a bad idea."

At that precise moment, despite the utmost respect he had for Mikoto's right hand man, Misaki Yata experienced a profound drop in his admiration for Kusanagi's intelligence.

He spit milk all over the bar (milk, because God fucking damn it, it was never too late to try for a growth spurt). Kusanagi shot him a glance like a dagger.

"Sorry I'll clean it up but _what_?"

"From a strategic point of view—"

"But it's fucking Saru!"

"Yes, you've already mentioned that he's offered to help you with your… girl problems."

"It's _Saru_!"

"Yata-chan, please calm down. I'm going to have to throw you out if you keep banging on the bar like that, and then you might run off and do something rash, and then we'd _all _have to sort out your mess. Including Mikoto. Do you want that?"

The mention of his King does it. Yata sits back down, sitting on his hands for good measure.

"Now, try and listen to me. Whatever your personal opinion of Fushimi Saruhiko—and I think everyone in HOMRA knows what that opinion is—you can't deny that he's in a position of power in Sceptre 4. I deal with information, and I know how powerful, how _crucial, _sometimes, a well-positioned inside man is. One spy can do a lot of damage if he is in the right place at the right time. Are you following me, Yata-chan?"

"But I wouldn't be spying," is all the defense Yata can summon. "Saruhiko's too"—he's going to say _smart, _but bites the compliment back for principle's sake—"stubborn to drop anything like that."

"And for years we thought Sceptre 4 was impenetrable, yet here's its third-highest head offering to help you with your personal life. _Offering. _To _help _you. I mean, short of Munakata coming in to wipe my floor or some such thing… Try to stand in my shoes and see how obvious the choice is."

"W-well, how do we know he's not trying to spy on us?"

"He very probably is," answers Kusanagi. "And that's why you can't screw up. What I'm saying here is that I trust you, and that HOMRA trusts you, to be able to play this game better than he can, and ensure that HOMRA comes out the winner. Besides…"

"Yeah?"

The barkeeper sighs and puts down the glass he's polishing. "I don't know how to say this delicately—"

"You don't have to be delicate with me. I'm not one of your champagne flutes."

This gets a laugh from him. "I'll be blunt then. Yata-chan, you're nineteen years old. Have you ever dated a girl before?"

"You, uh, that's… no."

"A boy, then?"

"Kusanagi-san! With all due respect, what the _fuck_!"

"Hey, how can you know if you've never tried?"

"Is that the principle you operate your romantic life on?"

"…That's a forbidden topic for junior members! Look, I'm just trying to cover all the bases here. Anyway, who knows? On the off-chance Fushimi isn't trying to drill a hole in our defenses via you, he might actually help you a little on—that front."

"Kusanagi-san, please tell me you're shitting me. What could that dumbass bastard possibly know about women? As if one would even touch him with a five-meter pole!"

"Women like all sorts of strange things," says Kusanagi with an oddly faraway look on his face. Yata's skin crawls with embarrassment. He really doesn't want to know what he's talking, or flashbacking, or whatever, about.

"What's this about women?"

At that moment, Yata's vague desire to run away from the bar morphs into a positive need to flee.

"_Chiise_," he mumbles miserably in Mikoto's general direction.

Anna, attached as ever at the boss' side, peers at him through a red marble.

"Are you okay, Yata?" she asks very kindly.

"I'm fine," he grunts, energetically combating the temptation to crawl behind Kusanagi's bar and never emerge.

"What's wrong with him?" asks Mikoto, jerking a thumb in Yata's general direction.

Yata's head shoots up. He gives Kusanagi a look crossed between total pleading, fury, and nervousness.

Kusanagi cheerfully ignores him. Yata's ears ring with a shattering noise as his hopes of avoiding complete and abject humiliation crash to the floor in pieces.

"Well, Yata-chan was actually talking about an interesting proposal with me!"

Yata makes a strangled noise. _Please don't do this to me, _he tries to say with his eyes, but Kusanagi is determinedly dodging his gaze as he explains away to the emotionless HOMRA boss. Anna, whose doll-like head is barely level with the bar's surface, gives him a pitying look. At that moment, Yata begins thinking of ways he can resign from HOMRA. Mikoto-san won't want him after this, hell, Anna won't want him after this—

"Sure," says Mikoto.

"What?" gasps Yata, surfacing from his misery like a man from a stormy sea.

"Sounds good."

"You think it's a good idea?"

"That's what he just said," says Anna pityingly.

Yata ignores her. "You want me to go ahead with this?"

"Yeah."

"You want me to take dating advice from S-S-that fucking asswipe Saru."

Looking bemused, the King replies, "I don't care what you do with him so long as you spy on him while you do it."

"See?" chirps Kusanagi. "All of us here have the utmost fate in you, even our King. Consider it a new assignment. Right?"

"Hm," echoes Mikoto vaguely, his supply of conversation seemingly exhausted for the day, as he reaches behind the bar and pours himself some whiskey.

"It's all settled then!"

_Betrayed, _thinks Yata, collapsing face-first onto the bar as Kusanagi chuckles far too brightly. _Betrayed on all sides… Even Anna's smirking at me. It's all been for nothing. I'll be the laughingstock of HOMRA, of Shizume fucking City…_

But, God damn it, Mikoto had given the word.

Now, what else could he do but obey?

()

"What makes you qualified, anyway?" he snaps.

Saru stares at him testily, tilting his chair way back on two legs. Yata, who's already sitting at least a meter from the edge of the café table, scoots his chair back another few centimeters. At this rate, they're going to be at opposite ends of Sakura Square by their third minute of conversation.

Mikoto-san might've ordered him to go through with this shitty assignment, but that didn't mean Yata had to enjoy it.

"I grew up with three sisters. You came from, what was it, a family of six boys?"

_Damn him for remembering. _And an absent escapee mother as well, so seven males total, with Yata the youngest of the entire lot… He was _supposed _to be the long-expected daughter of the group, but though the doctor had sworn up, down and sideways that the sonogram showed a girl, no one could doubt the screaming child that arrived on a blazing July 20th was a male. By then, though, it'd been too late, and Misaki it was.

A shard of memory comes back to him: Saru and him on a lazy summer day, lying on the sidewalk, and Saru saying, "_No wonder you're so attached to that baseball bat. You probably had to fight your way into existence with it…_"

Saru is looking at him oddly. Has he been spacing out?

Recovering the thread of the conversation, Yata spits, "So what? Did you date all of them?"

"I've had seven girlfriends in the past two years," Saru counters languidly.

"Didn't know there were that many dumb girls in all of Japan."

Saruhiko's sigh is the essence of exasperation. His bangs flop with irritation. "Misaki, do me a favor."

"Fuck you, I told you not to call me—"

"Count the number of times you've had a conversation with a girl over three minutes in length."

"…What?"

"Hurry up and do it. Or have you lost even the intelligence required to understand basic Japanese?"

"I understood you perfectly fucking fine!" Yata barks. "But your question was just plain weird!"

"It wasn't weird at all; what would be weird is your answer. Tell me. Ten? Less than that? Could you count the number on one hand, even?"

"_Fuck you!_"

"Is it—could it possibly be _zero_?"

"You know," snarls Yata, "I'm coming very close to saying fuck what the King says and—" Then his brain kicks into action and his mouth snaps shut.

"Go on," drawls Fushimi, his voice a lazy drip of black ink scarring the shocked, bleached silence of secrets accidentally revealed. "What did the King have to say?"

"…Said, that… I, I mean we… HOMRA shouldn't antagonize Sceptre 4 anymore?" _Damn it, _the end of the sentence comes out with a lilting rise.

"Well, for fuck's sake don't ask me; _I _don't know."

"A-anyway, what the King says is none of your fucking business," blusters Yata.

"You're the one who brought him up! As if I want to hear more about Mikoto Suoh. He's all you fucking talk about. Mikoto this, Mikoto that. One would think he's your boyfriend or something."

"The fuck did you just say? Take that back, asshole!"

"I don't think I want to." Saru stands abruptly. "Are you gonna make me, Mi-sa-ki?"

Yata smirks and pushes his chair back. "Bring it, you idiotic monkey, and I'll shove your sword so far up your ass that the whole of Sceptre 4 won't be able to pull it back out."

"Well then, I'll take your skateboard and jam it where the sun doesn't—"

"I'd like to see you try!"

"Talk is cheap. Let's go," orders Saru, thumb sliding the hilt of his blade half a challenging centimeter from its scabbard.

Yata cracks his knuckles. "Sounds fucking good to m—"

Both their phones ring.


	2. When Compromised

For a moment, they stare at one another, frozen. Both know the other is seriously contemplating ignoring that ringing phone, and all its implications of angry superiors and future chew-outs, in favor of a good old-fashioned throwdown in the middle of Shizume City, consequences be fucked.

In the end, common sense prevails all round. Yata presses his finger almost violently against the screen. Briefly, he wonders if he can get away with melting the phone and calling it an accident.

"Hello-this-is-Yata," he says sullenly, eyeing an equally unhappy looking Saru from the corner of his eye.

"Hi, it's me."

"Kusanagi-san…"

"Just wondering, how're things going with Saruhiko-kun?"

"Fucking Saru-dumbass-monkey and me are getting along just dandy."

"Is that irony I sense? I don't like irony before nine, it makes the customers rowdy. Seriously, though, don't tell me you've failed an assignment this important when you're not even a day in…"

"I haven't failed anything," Yata half-whispers, half-grumbles, more than a little defensively.

"Good. Do HOMRA proud. See ya."

He looks up from the phone to see Saru muttering expletives under his breath, pausing to feed polite-sounding _hai_s and _yes ma'ams_ into the mouthpiece of his phone. No doubt it's his busty lieutenant on the other side.

When Saru hangs up, he clicks his tongue and collapses back onto his chair.

"By all means," he says, "feel free to get the fuck out of here. Don't feel like I'm keeping you. I don't know why I came up with this shitty idea in the first place."

As tempting as it is to listen to him, Yata sits back down. "So what'd she say to you?"

"The Lieutenant? None of your business." After a moment of heavy breathing and traded glares: "…So, what were we talking about before you got vulgar and started threatening me?"

"_I _started threatening _you_? Did your mom fucking drop a brick on your forehead when you were born? Clearly you were the one who started this whole thing!"

"Pick a girl."

"Huh?"

"Right now. Look around and pick a girl, and try not to break your neck craning to see up anyone's skirt."

"Only you'd do something like that, vulgar monkey. Um, okay, that one. Brown hair in a ponytail, over there."

"…Do you even have any taste in women?"

"_Hah? _You got a problem?"

"Whatever. C'mon, get up."

"Get up—why?"

"Why do you think? Come _on_."

"W-w-w-wait a goddamn second."

"What for?"

"Just—sit down."

"Why?"

"You can't just throw me in there! You haven't told me jack shit about anything yet!"

"Well, I believe in learning under fire. Really, it's not like she's going to bite your head off. Unless you _really_ screw up."

"I don't even know her!"

"Do you know _any _girls?"

"…I know Anna!"

"…Who've passed puberty?"

"Don't bring up awkward-as-hell things like that out of nowhere! Any-fucking-way, what the hell am I supposed to talk to her about?"

"Whatever the hell type of banalities you normally make conversation with people about! The weather, television! It's talking, not rocket science."

"We have _nothing _in common!"

"You never know, she might be a violent gang member too. What a lovely couple that'd make. You could spend all your time arguing and bashing each other's skulls in with wrenches."

"As if. Gang members don't look like that."

Saru cocks an eyebrow. "They can clean up surprisingly well. I should I know. I dated one once."

For a second Yata forgets that they're sworn enemies, and it's like they're back in high school again. "Holy shit. Really?"

"Mhm."

"What'd she look like?"

"He, and I dunno, pretty normal, I guess. Not like you'd expect of," and then Saru must keep talking because Yata sees his lips moving and things, but hell if he knows what he's saying because he kind of got stuck at _he. _

He. He? _He? _It's not like they've been close in years, but still Yata feel as if he'd somehow mysteriously know about a shift this fundamental in Saru. Or, wait—has he always been like this? How long has this tricky bastard been playing both sides of the fence, anyway? _Why the fuck doesn't he know about this? _For fuck's sake, he's—

"He~llo? Earth to planet Misaki? God, planet Misaki, sounds like the name of a whorehouse. Anyway, here's a situation you can learn from. People don't like it when you space out while they're talking to you. It makes it look like you think they're boring. The least you can do is put on an interested face."

"Oh, that's rich coming from _you_, who only knows how to move his face into that one dumb expression."

"Whatever. Listen, if you don't get up in five seconds, I'm going to have to drag you over. What kind of impression do you think that's going to make? Come on, _Misaki, _don't start living up to your name now and become a total pussy—"

"Okay, that's fucking enough. I'm going."

"Good."

"Fine."

"All right then."

He only starts regretting it after the third step. When he hesitates, Saru snaps his fingers at him like he's some dog, and Yata has to restrain a growl.

All too soon, the two of them are hovering over the girl, who gives them a curious look.

"Hi. I'm Saruhiko Fushimi, and my friend thinks you're very beautiful."

Yata almost chokes on his own spit. _When the fuck did that side-talking bastard get so blunt? _

The girl considers them over the edge of her cellphone. Yata's afraid if he tries to smile right now it'll come out as a serial killer's demented grin, so he just sticks with looking utterly confused.

Eventually, she puts the little device down, and replies, "Is your friend also mute, or just very shy?"

When Saru shoots him a look, Yata finds himself unable to make his cue. When it's clear that he's half-paralyzed with fear, Saru sighs. "The second one. His name is Mi—Yatagarasu."

The sudden change of tact surprises Yata. He gives Saru an odd look, while the girl's eyes bounce from one of them to the other like a spectator at a tennis match.

Did Saru just do him a favor?

"Miyatagarasu?" she offers. "That's a very, uh, interesting name."

"J-j-just Yatagarasu," blurts Yata. "Or Yata. He just fucked up, that's all."

Saru rolls his eyes. The girl laughs. "You two are very strange, you know that?"

"We're just ennfuhhhhh—friends is all," says Saru.

When he hears that, Yata almost considers challenging him to a fight again, before realizing that there wasn't really anything else he could have said: fuck, the truth? We're onetime best friends, turned bitter enemies on opposite sides of a gang war?

Well, fuck, this is awkward.

The girl glances slowly from Saru to Yata.

"Well, is it true?" she demands suddenly.

Yata almost jumps out of his skin. "What?"

"What he said, silly. Do you really think that, or did your clever talker of a friend make that up for you?"

And this time, finally, he's able to say the right thing:

"He didn't make it up," he says. "I think y-y-y-ou're really um I think you're pretty cute yeah."

"It's like pulling teeth from a cat with this one," murmurs Saru, irritation coating his voice like grit. "You two have fun, since it looks like you're off to a lovely start."

Helpless, Yata watches desperately as he strides off, a thin slice of blue, and feels utterly betrayed. It brings up a bad feeling in his gut: the memory of that day, when that fucking coward betrayed HOMRA—

"—garasu-kun?"

_Fuck! _She must've asked him something! Damn Saru for distracting him.

"S-sorry, what?"

"Nothing, I just asked do you go to Ashinaka?"

"Um, I'm actually, um, not in high school…"

"Really?"

"… becau~seeee, uh, I'm nineteen? Sooo, I already g-graduated."

Calling the events of the following five minutes 'making conversation' would be far too kind. Yata can't—he just can't _talk _with her. Even though the poor girl hurtles a veritable battalion of questions at him, he can't summon more than a short, few-word response to each one. Hyper-conscious of her female-ness, of gleaming hair and lip gloss and boobs and skirt and everything else, Yata finds his tongue crippled. It doesn't help that she treats him with the vague amusement one usually uses to deal with young children.

Mercifully, after the five minutes is up, she rises slightly and says, "Actually, I have to meet a friend at 2, so…"

"Oh," says Yata weakly. "Yeah. I mean, okay."

She stands, snapping her purse shut, and sort of gives him a little pat on the arm.

"You're doing fine, really. Just try to breathe more—you look like there's a boa constrictor strangling you. See you around, Miyatagarasu."

"S-s-see—"

She's gone.

Yata sits back down and sort of just gasps for a few seconds. He touches his face with one finger and discovers that his skin is flaming hot. _Damn that Saru for throwing me under the bus like that, that bastard… That was a fucking disaster any way you think about it… _

"Done already?"

Yata jumps. Saru has somehow reappeared beside him.

"Don't tell me—you dropped that you were in HOMRA and she ran away."

"She had to meet a fucking friend, okay."

"Really. Is that what she said."

"Fuck you! Maybe if you'd actually given me some advice, she would've stuck around longer!"

"Advice is theory, and theory only works in theory. You need to practice."

"If you're telling me to go find another girl, I swear to God—"

"Then practice on me."

"What?"

"Just—try and use that limited imagination of yours, and pretend like you're talking to a girl. Okay? It's not like you even have the harder job here; I'm the one who has to—"

"It's a hard job either way if we have to pretend to fucking like each other! Besides, there's no way I can think of you as a girl."

Saru stares at him for a second, then suddenly drags a chair around the table and sits right in front of Yata. Like, _right in front. _Their knees collide. He can see his reflection in Saru's glasses. Yata balks, but Saru clamps a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from backing up.

"Wh-what the fuck, Saru," splutters Yata, trying to pick Saru's fingers off his sweater.

"Don't back up. I'm trying to make you uncomfortable."At this distance, Yata can smell mint on his breath. "Are you nervous?"

"Of course I'm fucking nervous! I feel like you're going to try and stab me or something."

"Perfect. Let's talk about the weather."

"_What_?"

"Tell me your name. Pretend."

"Y-Yatagara—"

"Look in my eyes when you talk to me." Obeying is a mistake: Saru's unblinking stare makes Yata feel like they're stuck in a staring contest. His skin crawls. "Stop moving your head so much—you look like you have a nervous twitch. And don't keep glancing away—any girl'd think you were bored, with the way you're acting." Yata feels Saru's fingers pinch his chin, brace-like, and steer his face back towards him. He wonders if this is how a mouse feels between a cat's paws. Saru's nails are long enough that they dig slightly into Yata's skin. "And don't cross your arms, it makes you look defensive. Now, what do you like?"

"I-I, um, I—" _Damn it, _it's working. He's nervous as all hell. His palms are sweating.

Saru laughs. Yata almost falls off his chair in shock because Saru _never_ laughs. Then he realizes that it's fake, of course—but it's also damn convincing. He's become an even better actor than he was before.

"You're a funny guy, Yatagarasu-kun." Saru leans forward, and Yata tries with all his might to ward him off mentally, but when his right hand finally succumbs to the overwhelming temptation to punch Saru in the stomach, he finds that both his wrists are pinned down by his cold hands. Saru's face is all he can see and Saru's face is _different, _it's interested and engaged and his pupils are blown wide and his lips curve slightly upwards as if in spite of themselves; his indifference has vanished and Yata's walking blind, tightroping across this strange new land. Briefly, it occurs to him that this tightness in his chest, this wet-palmed feeling is exactly how he feels around girls, and that by extension Saru's actually doing a great job, and maybe he should really just keep playing this weird game…?

But it's all too uncomfortable, and Yata snaps, "Fucking let go of me, Saru!"

"I'm not Saru," Saru counters smoothly, and oh man, any last modicum of personal space Yata might have possessed is flying out the fucking window. "I'm someone you love, and I'm telling you right now that I like you a lot. What do you say to that?"

"I—I can't—_Saru_—"

"Yata, what're you doing?"

Inches from Yata's face, Saru's expression changes instantly; boredom slams back down over his face like steel shutters. He leans slightly back, his hands leaving Yata's wrists to echo the icy aftershocks of his skin.

"You didn't tell me you were bringing the fire brigade," he drawls. "Really, Misaki, I feel like next time I should bring Munakata with me just to even the balance."

"What the fuck is he doing here?"

Bando, Akagi, and Kamamoto circle the two of them cautiously, like hunters circling a wolf. Saru leans back in his chair and glances at them with hooded eyes. Yata can feel three curious stares boring like drills into his head, silently demanding an explanation.

When Saru stands, all three of them flinch, knees bending, backs hunching, fists rising—the posture of people expecting an attack. Funny, how Yata had almost forgotten that he was the enemy.

But Saru doesn't draw his sword, doesn't even acknowledge the other HOMRA members.

All he says is, "I'll see you around, Misaki."

And then leaves Yata to his drying sweat, racing heart and compromising situation, the bastard.

**AN: **

****Sorry it took so long to write this, the ending just wouldn't work for me. If you have time, please drop a review!


	3. When Confronting Small Girls

Three days later, Yata stands on Highway 158, watching a helicopter come smashing down in front of him like a clumsy falling star.

Technically, it's his bat that hit it. So, technically, it's his fault.

But _fuck _that. It's really all Saru's doing.

Which is ironic, because Yata hasn't so much as seen Saru since they last met in Sakura Square—thank God. As for the HOMRA side of the problem, Yata gets remarkably lucky as well— it turns out some upstart yakuza or other has made a move on the northwest corner of their territory, which is why Bando, Akagi, and Kamamoto had come looking for him in the first place. This translates into lots of head-bashing duty for everyone, especially when Chitose's latest girl somehow gets dragged into the ruckus and ends up in the hospital with a hairline fracture. All in all, Yata's not naïve enough to think that the three of them have forgotten anything, but at least they're all busy enough that no one brings it up.

It's all going dandy until, late one afternoon, Yata's watch buzzes. _One new message from Saruhiko Fushimi. _

It's an image captioned only, _thought of you. _

Puzzled, Yata peers at the pixilated picture for a good ten seconds—

And shouts "Fuck that fucker!"

In and of itself, that's fine, but then the man who's been unsubtly trailing Yata for the last half hour interprets this as a signal to panic and start firing his gun. Which _sucks, _because Yata had been working on luring him into an abandoned alley so he could dispatch him as quietly as possible. Sure, one superheated baseball bat to the head takes care of him, but it doesn't do anything about the three police cars that promptly descend on him like flies on honey. And when he's done with _those, _and every motherfucking car on the street's honking at him like he can press some button and undo the shit out of the five-lane traffic jam now sprawling across the road, a fucking _helicopter _shows up.

Yata chucks his bat at it, wishing it was Saru's head that goes down in spectacular flames seconds later.

As the helicopter sends a good chunk of the highway crumbling to pieces, bits of flaming char bouncing harmlessly off Yata's clothes, his watch buzzes, this time with a text from Kusanagi. By now, Yata's not even surprised that he already knows—like a law of physics, Kusanagi's ability to know everything about everyone was as undeniable as it was incomprehensible.

barmanmeilleur: hi yata-chan. you're on the news right now so smile. btw, did you really have to use a helicopter to kill him?

barmanmeilleur: like were you just not feeling the bat

barmanmeilleur: more of a let's cause a public disturbance kind of day

yataofhomra: sorry

yataofhomra: but it's bc

yataofhomra: saru sent me this and then a lot of shit happened

He forwards the picture.

barmanmeilleur: ….

barmanmeilleur: that's actually pretty funny :P

yataofhomra: …ur not helping

barmanmeilleur: but it is

barmanmeilleur: lol

yataofhomra:… what

barmanmeilleur: i just showed it to anna and some people. they think its hilarious

yataofhomra: WHAT

yataofhomra: ARE YOU FCKING SERIOUS

yataofhomra: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

yataofhomra: KUSANAGI-SANNNNNNNNN

yataofhomra: u there

yataofhomra: hello?

yataofhomra: well fuck

He closes the chat tab, exposing Saru's picture lurking in the background like a sneer.

_Thought of you. _At first, he hadn't realized what Saru was talking about. It seemed to just be a photo of a crowd of people walking around. It took him a few seconds to find the little girl in the midst of it all.

She was maybe eight or nine years old, a scrawny redhead with two bouncy pigtails dressed in a fluffy pink dress who was unmistakably in the middle of throwing a screaming fit. And everything about her resembled Yata.

For Christ's sake, it wasn't just that their hair were near exactly matching shades of fire-engine red. It was her expression and her posture, the way she balled her fists, the way her feet were planted firmly apart. If Yata was eight, and a girl, and about _four-foot-fucking-nine_—

Piling insult on insult, a few seconds later, Saru had sent him a clarification: _in case you couldn't tell girl = you. _This time the photo had the girl's face circled messily in red and a badly cropped photo of his own face pasted next to it. _resemblance is amazing, she could be your twin. maybe she's called misaki too_

And this is why the downed helicopter is really Saru's fault.

As if things weren't going great enough, when he gets back to HOMRA, there's a good five or six members sitting around and having a laugh at the photo, which Kusanagi has oh-so-helpfully projected onto the wall of the bar.

"Hey, Yata-san—you're the man of the hour!"

"The star himself." Laughter all around. "Really, are you sure you don't have any long-lost sisters? 'Cause that chick, like, _is _you."

Yata slaps Bando so hard in the head that he nearly falls off the bar stool. Which, unfortunately, doesn't phase anyone else.

"I mean, I hate to admit it," Kamamoto continues, popping half a chunk of puff pastry into his mouth, "but that Blue's really right—the resemblance really is startling. Like, especially with that photo of you—your heads are even at the same angle and everything—"

"It's _perfect. _I wonder where he got that?"

"D'you think he stalks you?"

"_Oooh, _yeah—he definitely seems the stalker type."

"I can see it."

"_Why_," Yata growls, "do none of you sound one _fucking_ iota concerned about this?"

"So he does stalk you then!"

"_I never said that_!"

"Chihuahua," interjects Eric from the couch, which really makes no fucking sense in any context whatsoever, but sends Yata flying off the handle anyway.

At a sigh and a nod from the long-suffering Kusanagi, Kamamoto manhandles Yata out the door as he screeches, "C'mere and I'll beat some Japanese into your head, you dirty-mouthed little—And you, fucking let go of me!"

And that's how it goes, for the next few days—the photo relentlessly circulating amongst HOMRA, teasing comments and laughter erupting wherever it lands while Yata, helpless, grinds his teeth and plots a thousand horrible deaths for Saru. Saru, who goes frustratingly silent as Yata bombards him with incredibly creative death threats. In fact, Yata's on the brink of storming the Blues' building for the express purpose of kicking Saru's ass into the middle of next year, Kusanagi's disapproval be damned, by the time Saru messages him back.

Frustratingly, he doesn't acknowledge any of Yata's tomes' worth of previous texts.

sfushimi: meet me at the east gate of Sunshine City tmrrw at 2

sfushimi: and do yourself a favor and get some new clothes before

yataofhomra: wow thanks for all the notice

yataofhomra: oh and btw, in case u didn't read any of the other 1039480971 messages

yataofhomra: FUCK YOU

sfushimi: still hung up on that? get over it, it was totally true.

yataofhomra: you know

yataofhomra: don't you have better things to do than creep on little girls... like is this what you blues actually do at your so called jobs all day

sfushimi: are you calling yourself a little girl? i'm saving this one up

yataofhomra: oh go fuck yourself

yataofhomra: wait ... what?

yataofhomra: WAIT WHAT

yataofhomra: you fucking creep what the hell does that mean

sfushimi: don't be late

yataofhomra: DON'T FUCKING IGNORE ME

yataofhomra: SARUUUUUU

yataofhomra: YOU FUCKING USELESS MONKEYOIHAPFEGOWBPIEW

As much as he feels like disobeying Saru for principle's sake, Yata makes the trip to a nearby department store anyway, mainly because when he caught Anna staring oddly at his back a week or two ago and asked what she was doing, she'd serenely replied, "Counting the number of holes in your sweater." Inside, the crowd whirls along like a hurricane, sweeping floor-to-ceiling in a frenzy of early Christmas shopping. Helpless, Yata ends up being blown from one elevator to another, one floor to the next, without ever catching sight of a men's department.

They always make these places so fucking confusing. This is why Yata hates shopping. He can't remember the last time he set foot in one of these glossy, sparkly, loud buildings. It must've been when he bought this sweater…

Ah. He slows, letting the crowd shove him off to the side. That's right.

Last time he'd been with Totsuka-san.

This is the thing, with Totsuka. You miss him in a thousand ways you never thought about when he was here. The smell of a new dish. Or the red, winking eye of his ancient video camera. Or horrid skateboarding in the late afternoons. Or someone to help elbow you through the crowds in a mall. His absence is defined by his lack of presence, by all the times everyday Yata realizes with a dull ache that he isn't here. He's missing in fragments, from every argument that doesn't get smoothed over, every newcomer that they don't quite know how to handle, every sticky situation that gets solved with fists instead of politics. And every time Yata sees him in what could have been, it's like the wounds are reopened a little, and he takes a little longer to heal—

"—vert."

A small noise jolts him out of his thoughts. Yata glances around, but doesn't see anyone talking to him.

A second later, there it is again: nearly inaudible, but quite clear.

"Pervert."

"What the fuck?" Where is that coming from?

After glancing left, right, around, and even _above _for good measure, Yata glances suspiciously at the floor near his feet. Squatting, he pushes aside a forest of hangers on the lowest bar of the rack right next to him.

**AN: **If you liked, please drop a review! Thanks.


	4. When Confronting (Hot) Aunts

**AN: **bit of a shift for the serious in in this chapter. any angst is only temporary, i swear!

* * *

Bingo. A little girl, about five years old, twin indigo pigtails curling around her shoulders, sits on the base of the rack with her knees tucked beneath her chin. What she's doing down there, lurking like some fairy of commerce observing her kingdom, Yata has no idea.

Some kind of damn sassy-mouthed fairy—

_Be nice. She's just a kid. _

With an attempt at a smile that emerges a grimace, Yata says, "What're you doing down there?"

"I have more of a right to be down here than you. Sicko."

"Well, the only reason I _came _down here was because of you. And stop calling me that."

"Perv," she says a little louder.

"_Sh._" He glances over his shoulder, but it's only the two of them. "Why d'you keep saying that?"

"Why else would you be standing in the lingerie department for like ten minutes?"

"The—_what_?"

She points above his head. "Look."

Yata glances up, just in time to see an entire rack of D-cup bras descending on him in a hailstorm of lace.

His "_fuck!_" is muffled slightly by the crash of the rack hitting the floor. Clawing his way out of the pile of underwear, Yata feels his face turn flaming hot. Of all the fucking places he had to zone out…

The girl is standing a few feet away, apparently unharmed.

"Did you just push that over on me, you little brat?" he demands.

"I didn't do anything. I just stood up."

"_It's the same damn thing!_"

"_Pervert_!" she hollers back.

"Fuck—shhh! I'm not a—I was just lost."

"For ten minutes?"

"I was thinking!"

"I _bet_ you were."

Jesus fucking _Christ, _this girl's an annoying brat, and way too precocious for her age. She's like a fucking miniature girl Saru. Maybe he should video this and sent it to him; caption it _thought of you. _Would fucking serve him right, too.

"…Okay, you know what, fuck this," Yata growls. "I am _not_ having this argument with a five-year-brat. I'm going, okay? So you can stop calling me names."

He turns and begins the long process of stalking out of the enormous lingerie department, but then that voice pipes up again, no farther away from him.

"Pervert."

"Stop following me," he snarls.

"Perv."

"Get lost. Seriously."

"_Hentai_."

He whirls around. "Okay, I'm telling you right now, loud and clear, to fucking stop following me and go back to your mom or whoever brought you here. You're annoying and I don't want to deal with you."

She doesn't say anything, doesn't look hurt or cry (thank God, Yata has no clue how he'd deal with that), but something in her expression shifts.

Hesitating, Yata looks closer, and realizes_— _

"…Are you lost?"

"You're a pedo," she mutters, instantly latching onto his wrist with her hands.

"… oh, you have a lot of fucking guts to be saying that when you're the one clinging to me like a monkey."

"Pedo."

"…Listen, you want me to leave you here?"

"You wouldn't."

Damn it. As tempting as the idea is, he won't. He can't. And she knows it.

He sighs. "Okay, I'm walking you to the, whatever, the counter or the pound or wherever it is they put lost kids in this place, and that's it. My good deed for the day, or more like the fucking year. So don't think I'm taking you home or some shit like that."

"I wouldn't want to go anyway. You smell funny."

"… Christ, you really don't know how to deal with people, do you?"

"I'm five. At least _I_ have an excuse for not knowing how to deal with people."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"No~thing. And you might want to stop yelling at me. People are gonna think bad about you."

Yata grits his teeth and stares at the ceiling. It seems that all the little girls in the city have been mobilized to torment him this past week. _Another ten minutes, _he thinks. _Another ten minutes and if I haven't found somewhere to dump her I'll just leave her where she is, karma, God, and the rest be damned._

Fifteen minutes, four misdirections, and several dozen creative curses (Yata's) and filthy looks (assorted shoppers') later, they finally found a salesperson who knows where the lost-and-found is. On the elevator ride down to the appropriate floor, Yata feels the girl shaking against him. She's only wearing a thin cotton dress and the air-conditioning in here is brutal. That must've been why she was hiding beneath that rack, Yata realizes—she wanted to get warm.

Subtly as possible, he heats up his arm a little. Maybe he overdoes it—she starts in surprise, then gives him a long, odd look. He half-smiles at her. "You're cold, right?" But she doesn't respond.

Thank God, not too much longer after that Yata finally catches sight of the lost-and-found. As they approach, a teenage girl comes flying out and crushes the girl in an embrace.

A teenage girl.

A teenage girl.

A cute teenage girl.

Whose blousy top's low-cut neckline droops lower and lower as she bends over to embrace the little girl, revealing a pair of perfectly shaped—

"Reina! Oh, thank God—I had no clue where you were! Where'd you go, you dummy?"

"I got lost."

"And this nice man brought you back?" She gestures at Yata, who freezes in the process of trying to simultaneously determine the temperature of his face and control his bloodflow. _Think of wrinkled old grannies. Think of dogs getting run over. Think of, God damn it, think of—_

"Mmmm." A tiny, sulky nod of assent from Reina.

"Where's your thank you?"

"—_rigato_," she mutters.

"C'mon, say it properly," the girl admonishes. She shifts her weight slightly, causing that damned neckline to slip again. Yata feels his eyes being not so much drawn as forcibly sucked southwards. Trying to move them away is like using a thread to haul a refrigerator upstream—in short, it isn't going to happen.

"_A-ri-ga-to_," says the girl.

"_Arigato_," she intones murderously, glaring daggers at Yata.

The older girl sighs and glances somewhere in the region of Yata's face, which Yata interprets as his cue to initiate a staring contest with her shoes. "And that's as close as she'll get to good manners. Thanks for taking the trouble to bring her back. God knows Reina can be a handful at the best of times."

"Shhh-eee sure knows a lot of, of, um, in-interesting words," he says to her big toe.

"Our family's not the best at raising well-behaved children."

"Your sister she's? Um, I mean—"

"Niece—my older sister's daughter." A hand effortlessly interrupts Yata's line of sight. "I'm Nana, by the way."

Lost in the mesmerizing, jewl-like shimmer of each of this Nana chick's perfectly manicured nails, Yata stares at her outstretched hand for about fifteen seconds before realizing what she's waiting for.

"Y-Yatagarasu-nice-to-meet-you," he mutters. He gives her hand about quarter of a shake before dropping it. It seems _his_ hand has suddenly dedicated itself to disgorging a dam's worth of sweat. Reina shoots him a filthy look, as if she knows exactly what he's thinking about.

"He can do the fire thing," she says suddenly.

"What?"

"In the elevator, because I was cold he made himself really warm with the red fire."

The girl gives him a slow onceover. Yata feels her gaze as acutely as a steel rake dragging across his skin.

"Yatagarasu… it can't be—are you Misaki Yata?"

Yata starts.

"Yeah… Sorry, but I don't—do we, have we… know each other?"

From behind her aunts' skirts, Reina mouths something that looks a hell of a lot like "what a loser." Yata tries to ignore her.

"Yeah! Or, sort of. Sorry, it's just—my full name's Nana Fushimi. Saru's my older brother. You guys used to hang out a lot a few years back, right?"

"Oh…"

Hotness and all, Nana instantly shifts into the "totally non-dateable" portion of Yata's brain. It's not just that she's related to Saru, although that's a big part of it: Yata had totally misjudged her age. Nana's at least five years younger than him—although she hardly looks it... Of course, his brain and mouth then choose to slowly reconcile the violent differences they seem to have every time a cute girl enters his airspace, and relative coherence is reestablished."Yeah, come to think of it, I think I saw you a couple of times at his house. Sorry I didn't remember. It's just that you've kind of changed a lot."

"No, I get it—it's been a while for both of us. Are you two still friends at all, or…?"

"We—not really, no. We sort of, um, fell out after he joined the Blues—I mean, Sceptre 4."

"That's a pity. I was kinda hoping you knew where he was, or at least how to get in touch with him."

"Are you looking for him?"

"Not specifically at the moment, but in general, yeah. A bunch of our family took the trouble to travel out to Shinren General this past week, but now that everyone's here, the one guy that lives here has vanished completely. He won't pick up his cell, and none of us know his apartment number. Mom's going to blow a gasket if we don't find him soon."

"Shinren General, like the hospital?"

Nana turns grave eyes on him. It's so fucking weird seeing Saru's murky eyes and heavy lashes on a young girl's face, solemn with a young girl's worry. "It's our dad. He's been quite sick for a while now, and he wants see us all again before, you know, it's too late."

Oof; that sure turned the conversation heavy. "Wow, that's, um, pretty terrible…" When she doesn't say anything, Yata quickly adds, "But it's fucking typical of that shitty monkey not to show up. What a total bastard."

"I don't really blame him, though. He was never exactly close with Dad. And you know Saru—a coward to the end."

"…You mean he's afraid of him?"

Because Yata knows Saru's dad used to hit him sometimes, back when they were in middle school. He never brought it up, because he figured it wasn't anything out of hand—hell, between his gang of older brothers, it wasn't as if Yata didn't get his ass handed to him every other day. They'd both make fun of each other's bruises in the locker room at school, and anyway, Saru stopped showing up hurt after they entered high school. It's not like either of them have been through anything like Eric Sutr, with his scarred wrists and cigarette burns.

Maybe. Now Yata is wondering. What if things were worse between the two than he had thought? Could trauma of some sort explain—excuse—the monkey's shitty, lazy-ass attitude, endless cynicism and sociopathy? And even if Nana were to spin some sort of sob story, would that allow Yata to forgive him?

"What?" Nana's voice startles him out of his thoughts. "No. I didn't mean it like that. It's just that he's… well, you know, it's Saru."

"Um…?"

"I mean… I'm sure you've noticed that he doesn't really like being attached to people. So he'd rather run away."

"I dunno. Seems like a pretty fucking confrontational guy to me. I mean, every time I see him he's picking fights with people. And he's always bragging about getting more powerful, or whatever."

"But the thing is, he just fights to fight. Not really to win anything or protect anything. I don't even think it's for himself. It's a cowardly kind of aggression."

"I—I guess. I never really thought about him that way."

"Most people don't. Maybe it's because I grew up with him that I can see how much of a coward he is. I think that's why Saru's such a cynic. In a way, it's like, if you always expect the worst of people, it's easier because you can never be let down. If you hope for something, or put yourself out there, it's always possible that things will go wrong, so Saru would rather just not believe the best about anything—other people or himself. I mean, did you know he's actually really smart?"

"Please! As if he'd ever let me forget about it! He rubbed it in my face all damn day."

"But in school—he always played average. Right?"

"Right… Come to think of it, he should've been able to test into Ashinaka no problem. He shouldn't even have been in our school."

"That's what I thought, too. But no one in our family was even shocked when he said he'd failed the entrance exam, because he's always like that. Who even knows what his results were. Or maybe he didn't even bother taking the test at all. Saru sabotages his own chances."

"When you put it like that it sounds so depressing."

"He's a depressing kind of person. _Ne, _Yatagarasu-kun?"

"Hm?"

"I wanted to ask… well, maybe this is sort of a weird question, but I've never seen Saru really happy before. Have you?"

"I—"

He's about to say _sure_, but then he really thinks about it. Back in high school, at best, maybe he'd get a smirk and a lazy sort of contentedness out of Saru. And in HOMRA he'd always been the odd one out, a spectator hovering on the fringes, a blue-smudged shadow fading from the bar or getting drunk. With a jolt, Yata realizes he's never really heard the guy laugh.

Eventually, he says, "I don't know."

"Figures." Nana smiles. "He's a terrible older brother and an irresponsible bastard, but if it's at all possible, I'd like him to be happy someday. If only to keep this one happy," she says, nudging Reina gently with her elbow. "She adores Uncle Saru, doesn't she?"

"I don't _adore _anyone, Nana. Geez."

Nana sighs, glancing at her phone. "Take my word for it, the kid loves him. Anyway, I'd better be heading back, or Mom will be worrying. I'm sure she doesn't need another one of her kids disappearing. It was nice chatting with you, Misaki-kun."

"You too. I hope—I hope your Dad gets better."

"Thanks," she says, even as her smile saddens.

After she leaves, Yata flips out his skateboard and heads towards HOMRA. He can't think when there's too many people around, so he takes the back alleys, mindlessly grinding down steel handrails and flipping over garbage bins.

_If it's at all possible, I'd like him to be happy someday. _

Is it possible? With a guy like Saru?

For some reason, this brings up a memory that Yata had forgotten he had: of the two of them, the only ones in a sleepy arcade in the middle of a blazing summer day; inside the heat of the machine turns the dark room nearly volcanic. _There's no such thing as heroes, _Saru says to him, fingers pressing at the worn plastic buttons of the console. _That's what they should be teaching kids instead of all this believe-in-your-dreams crap. _

Yata attempts and fails a five-hit combo. _Do you really believe that?_

_Of course. _Drop-kicks Yata's character into a roof. _I'm not just being contrary. Give me evidence of a hero, and I'll start believing right away. I can't believe in what doesn't exist. _

_Well, Mikoto-san, obviously. _

_Mikoto? _Saru's fingers still for a moment; Yata scrambles for the advantage and almost slides off the platform by accident. _The fuck? Don't make me laugh. He's just the leader of a bunch of street punks who pick off yakuza for fun. What future is there in Mikoto? _

_Can you fucking stop thinking so practically for once?_

_Don't be naive. The way you're acting like a child disgusts me. If you're really so blind as to how the real world works, then you're just hopeless. _

_How the real world works? _Saru's starting to really tick him off. _What, you're saying there's no such thing as loyalty in the real world? Or family? How the fuck do _you _see the world, anyway?_

_I'll tell you. In the real world, there's no one to rely on but yourself. _Powering up, Saru levels Yata with his ultimate attack. HP, 0; game, over. Saru turns to look at him.

_Friendship, family—those things all dry up in time. In the end, all human being are really brutes. And I'm no different. _

Yata takes his hands off the machine. _Then what about me?_

_What?_

_Me. I'm asking if you believe that about me. _

_You're—you're nothing but a kid, Misaki. _

_Is there anything so wrong with that?_

_Hurry up and grow up already. The world won't wait for you. _

_Maybe you need to take your own advice. _

_Me? I'm already grown up. _

His retort comes several years too late, but Yata says it anyway: "As if. You haven't moved forwards at all."


	5. When Attacked

The next morning, Yata elbows his way through the crowd to the sight of Saru lounging against one of the gaudy white columns of the giant Sunshine City gate, practically dripping boredom.

"Saru."

He doesn't glance up from his PDA. "You're late, and why are you still wearing the same stupid outfit?"

"I…"

_I met your sister and your niece yesterday. I know your dad is in the hospital and your family is looking for you and probably worried sick, too. _

Saru flicks him an impatient glance and the words wither on Yata's tongue. He can't say it. It's not so easy to be honest with someone you're technically still not on speaking terms with. Besides, he feels like telling him would somehow be doing him a favor.

So Yata settles for the safety of retorts, instead. "I'm not a dog that follows all your orders—if you don't like my clothes you can go buy me some new ones with your own damn money. And you know, whatever you're doing, it looks incredibly sketchy."

"For that, I'm putting 166.9."

"What?"

"Your height, obviously."

"What's so fucking obvious about it? I don't even know my height, and what's with that lame decimal p—come to think of it, how do you even kn—wait, what the hell do you need my height for?"

And there's the patented eye-roll. Seriously, Yata's surprised he's never strained an eyelid or something, pulling that scornful face of his. "I'm making a dating profile for you. Considering how technologically incompetent you are, I figured it'd be better if I just filled in the obvious things. Here, see?"

Snatching the proferred PDA, Yata peers at its screen.

_Misaki Yata. Sex: Male (in case you couldn't tell). Location: Shizume City. Age: 19. Birthdate: July 20. Astrological sign: Cancer. Blood type: B. Height: 166.9 cm. Weight: 55 kilos. Interests: gangs, being violent, arson, skateboarding. _

"…Saru_…_"

"What?" Saru says with a little moue of innocence.

"_WHAT THE HELL KIND OF PROFILE IS THIS?_"

When the PDA's screen begins shimmering with heat, Saru snatches it out of Yata's grasp.

"You're paying for a new one if you damage this! Anyway, what are you yelling about? It's totally accurate, isn't it?"

"Look at the fucking interests section! That's not—you can't put that kind of stuff online!"

"Would you rather me have lied?"

"As if you have a huge problem with lying! Actually, you lie when it's inconvenient to and tell the truth when it's inconvenient to! In other words, you're just a contrary asshole!"

"Tsk. _Fine, _do whatever you want with the interests section. I was just trying to help, ungrateful brat."

"Hold the fuck up—I'm not done with this. What the hell is up with that_ 'in case you couldn't tell' _part_?_"

"Do I need to spell it out for you? Your name is Mi-sa-ki. One of the top 100 most popular female names in all of Japan. What do you _think _people are going to assume about you?"

"Just leaving it at _MALE _would have been enough, don't you think?!"

"Well, as long as you're okay with fifty-year-old creepers trying to virtually ogle you, I guess I'll take that part off. Anyway, at least you can't complain about the rest of it. Take a look and tell me any of it's inaccurate."

"… Actually, the problem here isthat it's _all_ accurate. Saruhiko—"

"Misaki."

"I don't remember telling you _any of this._ My birthday—"

"I remember from high school. Not everyone's as inconsiderate as you, you know."

"—My fucking astrological sign—"

"Once you have the birthday down, it's not as if that's so difficult to figure out, plus you're a stereotypical temperamental Cancer anyway."

"—_my blood type—_"

_"_You're too impatient and loud to be type A, too lazy to be type O, and I'm a type AB so obviously you couldn't possibly be—"

"And as for my fucking height and weight, _I _don't even know that_, _so how the _hell_ do you_—_"

"Now that's just irresponsible of you…"

"Not to mention, I don't remember ever seeing that photo of me before, which only leaves the possibility that you secretly took—"

"Oh, the photo—I just found that online somewhere."

"_That's a blatant lie, you—_"

"Can you just stop yelling for a second and talk like a normal human bei—"

"_LISTEN TO ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!_ I'm asking you, how the _FUCK _do you know all this stuff—"

"—Ah, looks like my finger slipped."

"About m… What?"

"I uploaded it. See?"

On the screen, a cheerful little blue flag waves, the word "success!" shimmering beneath it.

This isn't a success.

"…Take it down."

"Why?"

"_Take it the fuck down right now._"

"Make me."

"I will! Come on, monkey—"

"—Although, I will say that if you kill me now, you'll never know the password to your profile and you'll never be able to change it and it'll be up there. Forever."

The smug expression on Saru's face tells Yata he walked right into this one. "… Y-you, you fucking blackmailer, I hope you go to hell for this—"

"Assuming I do go to hell, I assure you it'll have nothing to do with your dating profile. Fucking calm your tits already, Misaki, it isn't that big of a deal—"

"You're saying that because it's not yours! How would you feel if I made your—"

"I wouldn't care, because I don't even need online dating to find a girl, so if you're thinking of doing that, go right on ahead. Now, ask nicely, or I won't give you the password and login."

"_Fuck_ you."

"Actually, let's make this a game. You get three girls' numbers before today's over and I'll give you the password. How's that?"

"…Are you giving me any other choice?"

"Oh, I'm glad we understand one another. Think of it as incentive."

"Think of it as you being an asshole."

Saru sighs as if Yata's the one being immature here. "C'mon, or we'll spend all day arguing out here. And remember, three numbers is all it takes to change your destiny."

"Or maybe I could just say fuck it all and stomp the living shit out of you here and now."

Smiling almost dreamily at the sky, Saru comments, "But you can't stomp the living shit out of the internet."

With nothing to say to this, Yata settles for grinding his teeth as they pass through the gate of Sunshine City, coined the "pick-up paradise" of Shizume City.

()

As it turns out, some shit-stomping really does happen before the end of the day. Unusually, however, Yata can't really find a way to pin this one on Saru. In fact, to be totally honest, if it's anyone's fault, it's probably his.

It starts with the very last date of the day, one with a girl named Todome who had aggressively short, jet-black hair and a pair of contacts that turned her eyes an eerie light purple. By that point, Yata feels like following the sun's example and slinking right into the ground. His nerves are shot, his wallet dying of starvation. If he has to buy another drink or make another word of conversation, he's either gonna flip shit or have a heart attack.

Luckily, this girl brings her own drinks to the table, in the form of a small silver flask hanging from her hip. After a few minutes of chatting, Yata feels considerably more at ease. This chick isn't exactly cute in the traditional Japanese sense, but she's chill, straightforward, and very interested in Yata.

Very interested, especially when he accidentally drops that he's a HOMRA member.

Okay, so Todome's into gangsters. It's not that strange, and more importantly, she's pretty damn hot. So it's understandable that when, halfway down the narrow alley that leads to the toilet behind the café, Yata is jumped by three bulky young men, he doesn't exactly think of her first thing.

_That _connection doesn't get made until he bursts out of the alley, the three thugs in hot pursuit, to the sight of Saruhiko and Todome circling each other around an overturned table, weapons drawn.

"You're late," Saru mutters, kicking an overturned chair out of the way, the clatter incredibly loud in the now-abandoned cafe. "She's Awakusu."

Awakusu was a medium-sized gang resting uneasily on the southern edge of HOMRA territory. HOMRA hadn't considered them a threat—up till this little encounter. What Sceptre 4's position on them was, Yata has no idea, but it hardly matters—judging from the looks of things, Todome had assumed Saru, too, was a HOMRA member.

Irony of ironies, thinks Yata, grinning as he hefts his bat from hand to hand, assessing the nervously shifting feet of the thugs ringing them. How long has it been since he and Saru fought together under HOMRA's banner?

On cue, Saru complains, "What a pain. Why'd you have to drag me into this?"

"Ask _her _that. And complain after we take them out."

"Don't _order _me. It's irritating."

"That's rich, coming from you."

The girl is in the middle of making some sort of ultimatum or other when Saru attacks her, it seems more out of irritation than Yata than any real ill feeling towards her. His motivation, however, doesn't make the slightest difference in the way his sword tears smoothly through the flesh of her right shoulder. Nor the way she grunts in pain, then yells at her goons, "Get him, you idiots!"

Of course, Yata takes care of the small fry in a matter of minutes, but not before one of the idiots pulls a cell phone and rings God knew how many other Awakusu.

"Damn it. There's more of those troublesome people coming," he calls to Saru.

"How many?"

"No idea. Probably a lot. You gonna ditch?"

"Like hell I will. It's better to finish this off here… if I lead a bunch of thugs to Munakata's doorstep you can be sure I'll never hear the end of it from his royal stick-in-the-mud. Besides, I could use a little exercise."

"Oh, you think you're fucking cool…"

"…You know, it's common sense not to insult the person who's helping you out."

"Like I asked you to!"

"Immature. Outside—they're coming."

Yata gives his bat a few practice swings, enjoying the clean sound it makes sweeping through the air.

He'd rather die than admit it, but it feels kind of good to be fighting like this again. Feels right.

The way Saru grins at him right before the first guy bursts through the door, yelling bloody murder. As if to say, _here we go again. _

()

Of course, the gang is easily enough taken care of. But _damn, _they sent a shit-ton of members over. You'd think after the first few went in and didn't come back out that they'd, dunno, regroup and reconsider or something. But they just didn't stop. Half of Awakusu must've ended up piled up inside that little café. Yata vaguely pitied the owner—this was one hell of an after-shift cleanup.

Saru wiped his sword on a fallen Awakusu member. "Christ, what a total fucking disaster." For a moment, Yata thought he was talking about the Awakusu. Then he realized he was talking about the blood on his shirt. "I need a drink. Come on, we're going someplace."

"Where?"

"Nowhere, just this worthless little place I've been to before. The music and the people are trashy as hell, but the drinks are cheap and the owner gives me credit, unlike a certain tightass we both know. Hurry up—the sooner we're wasted the better."

The word _wasted _brings up a little uneasy jolt in Yata's stomach. A little part of his mind begins cautioning him: _Yata, the last time you went drinking, remember what happened? I really don't think you should—_

"Are you coming or not?" calls Saru. "Or would you rather wait for the police to get here and arrest you?"

"I'm coming, geesh."

His mind falls into tight-lipped, knowing silence.


	6. When Hungover

"_Your friend's a real freak, Saru."_

"_Misaki?" _Laughter_. "He's just a virgin."_

Yata throws up.

()

"W… p…"

A voice pierces through the thick haze of sleep wrapped like an enormous scarf around Yata's mind.

"…ake up..."

_No-no-no-no_, Yata protests feebly, but it's too late—that warm haze is transforming rapidly into a heated iron band, tightening like a noose around his skull. He feels the remains of his sleep falling to shreds.

He groans.

"Mmmmmrnn."

Something rocks his shoulder; gently at first, then harder.

"Come on. Yata-chan, wake up."

And Yata really, _really _doesn't want to, but the wave of water that comes spraying over him seconds later doesn't give him much choice.

"—the fuck!"

He shoots up and immediately regrets it.

"Owww-_ch_. Fucking _motherfucker._"

Rocking forwards, he cradles his head, which feels as if someone has abruptly hammered two sharp nails into it.

"Good afternoon. Back in the land of the living, are we?"

He doesn't look up—it's way too motherfucking bright outside the safe confine of his arms—but recognizes the voice as Kusanagi's.

"What—" Pausing, Yata gags on the weird thick dryness coating his tongue and mouth. "Where…?" HOMRA, of course. He settles on: "What time is it?"

"Three in the afternoon. Fushimi dropped you off around ten—you're lucky Kosuke was there to let him in. You've been sleeping ever since."

"He means snoring," interjects Kamamoto from somewhere, laughing. "I mean, yeesh, Yata-san—I knew you were a loud person, but this was a whole new level!"

"Shut up! _Agh!_" Raising his voice—another mistake.

He hears a bit of shuffling around, then feels cold glass pressing against his arm. "Here, take it. It's a Bloody Mary—_my _Bloody Mary, so the best in the city. It'll help."

Shielding his eyes as much as possible with one hand, Yata gulps down the drink. "Th-thanks."

"Cheers. You look terrible," reprimands Kusanagi. "Geez, what did you and Fushimi get up to last night, anyway?"

"I—I don't r-really remember."

"Nothing? Anything at all?"

"Some things, here and there… The last thing I really remember is coming out of the bar with him and some girl. After that I don't remember anything."

"…He didn't roofie you or something, did he?"

"What's a roofie?"

A pause. "It's, uh, a sort of drug thing."

Yata waits for more, but Kusanagi doesn't elaborate. "Okay… Anyway, he _better_ the fuck not have drugged me."

"Well, as long as you're sure... I'd lecture you about this, but what's done is done. Just drink that, and then I have some carrot juice you can have, and try not to move too much or anything. And in the meantime, you can think about how to better control yourself the next—what's that?"

"What?"

Kamamoto peers at Yata's back. "Kusanagi-san's right. There's a thing—on your neck."

"Where? What?"

"Stop moving for a sec." Kamamoto tugs his collar down. Yata feels the rough pad of his finger scoring a line just above the first bump of his spine.

"…'You make a cute'…"

"What?" Forgetting his headache for a second, Yata uncurls to stare at Kamamoto. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"There's something written on you, like with marker or something, but I can't see the rest of it." With a brief apology, Kamamoto yanks his collar further down.

"Says, 'you make a… cute face when you're sleeping'?"

"…What the _hell_?"

"Did Fushimi write that on you?" calls Kusanagi from the bar.

"Damn if I remember."

"Wait, there's even more stuff. Hold on a sec." Plopping down on the couch beside Yata, Kamamoto shoves the hem of his sweater up past his shoulder-blades. As the hem rides up, Yata catches sight of numerous black marks crawling across his stomach and hips.

"It's—"

"—fucking everywhere!" Yata finishes. Half-panicking, he fumbles his sweatshirt, then his tank top, over his aching head. It's only after the tank top flops onto the couch that the extent of the damage becomes clear.

Japanese characters patter across his skin like footprints across beach sand, some large, some small, but all written in the unmistakable messy, dragging, lean scrawl of Saruhiko's hand. Besides words, there's the occasional doodle, as well as a series of dotted lines circling around his waist, hips, upper and lower chest with numbers drawn in little boxes lined up beneath each—his fucking measurements, no doubt, that absolute fucking creep.

Drifting over, Kusanagi takes one look at Yata and begins to laugh.

"I didn't know we let notepads in to HOMRA! Here, let me get you a mirror—apparently he meant for you to see some of these."

He hands him a feminine compact which Yata has no idea where he got from. Squinting at its tiny surface, he reads character-by-character the huge black words scrawled just beneath his collarbone.

"'Misaki Yata… is a com… plete lightweight'?"

Kamamoto snorts behind him. Yata snaps the mirror shut so hard that its plastic lid cracks. "The fuck are you, _ugh_, laughing at. I'll beat you up if you so much as smirk again."

"Whatever you say, Yata-san. But just so you know, it says 'must be because he's short' on your back."

"Mother-_fuck_ that fucker!" Yata screeches, ignoring the throb of his headache and Kusanagi's laughter. "What else did he write?"

"Just a lot of random stuff. A lot of it doesn't even have to do with you—there's this really long math problem going from here"—Yata feels Kamamoto touch a spot right above his right shoulderblade—"all the way to here"—left of the dip in his lower back—"And some kind of to-do list. 'Call tatsuya 16:00'—then there's a phone number, but he's blacked out the first three digits—'pda batteries,' 'milk,' and 'bento NO BAMBOO,' underlined three times—"

Half-listening, Yata twists to look at his right shoulder. Right over a scar from one of Saru's knives, he's written, 'this one's mine' and a little heart—

"—and then, let me see, some more blacked out stuff, then 'optometrist 1/03,' 'fuck munakata,' 'add worcestershire sauce,' and 'café lieben 16:00 12/28,' with a little angry man drawn next to it. And his name's all over the fucking place."

"Yeah, no shit." Peering down at himself, Yata can see the characters, 伏見猿比古, repeated over and over. In the crook of his left elbow and the veined inner curve of his wrist, jumping across his belly button (also written there: '55kg gain some weight Misaki'), dancing teasingly three times under his ribcage before running menacingly into the waist of his pants. He's also written the phrase '_salt here_' in several places, which Yata doesn't understand.

And finally, Saru's name appears just above his heart, upside-down from Yata's point of view, pressed darkly—almost angrily—over his HOMRA tattoo. Although it appears as if Saruhiko wrote over his name several times to make it darker, its characters are barely legible amidst the tangle and clash of the two conflicting marks, and the skin over Yata's heart only ends up marked with what looks like a sloppy-edged black circle.

What a mess.

On a sneaking suspicion, Yata awkwardly toes off both his shoes, then his socks. Sure enough, there's more written there. He peers at the bottom of his feet. _Size 7 _is written on the sole of his left, and _puny feet = puny… _on the right. More writing trails upwards from his ankle.

Suddenly, Yata is possessed by a deep desire to know exactly how far up the fucking line the guy got.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

"You fine by yourself?"

"I'm not a fucking invalid!" he says, right as he stumbles badly over the edge of the couch.

"Just be careful."

"Quit laughing, or else you're gonna find out how much worse those last three burgers you ate feel coming back up!"

Once inside the bathroom's narrow confines, Yata slowly peels off his pants.

Another couple '_Saruhiko Fushimi'_s—one behind each Achilles' tendon, and one across his knee. A girl's name and another blacked-out phone number on his calf. A virtual litany of '_salt here_' on his thighs. Yata scratches his head. What the fuck does that mean?

"Fucking be clearer if you're gonna write all over me," he mutters, and then freezes.

No.

That fucker didn't.

Leaning towards the mirror, he opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue.

There, written in the tiniest of characters: '_LIME_.'

Yata's blood runs cold.

_Fucking body shots._

_I let that son of a bitch drag me into doing body shots. _

Memory assaults him; drags him in a headlock into the dark electro-lit whirl of last night.

The memory of Saru's tongue. Saru's mouth.

_Relax, Misaki._

Saru, laying him down on the table and wedging a stinging-sour piece of fruit between his lips.

_It's fine._

Saru, on his elbows, hovering inches above his chest with a predatory gaze.

_Trust me._

Saru's head dipping down amidst the crowd's wild cheering, and then all he can see is a sweaty mop of blue hair, and all he can feel is the sick, slick wet sensation of something dragging its way up his chest like fire lapping up a line of oil…

"_Your friend's a real freak, Saru."_

"_Misaki? He's just a virgin." _

Sitting heavily on the toilet, Yata gouges up flashes of memory. The last thing he remembers clearly is vomiting outside the club, and the conversation between Saru and the everything begins to fragment. His head bouncing on Saru's lap in what must be a cab while he makes out with the girl. Strangling on the smell of perfume, the smell of vomit. A tiny room—probably Saru's—a shitty mattress. Flailing in blankets as a girl moans. Flashes of skin. Grumbling and being grumbled at as someone yanks his sweater off. The insistent press of a dripping-cold towel against his mouth. Flinching away from cold air as a now messily-clothed Saru pries the window open. Muttered phone conversations and restless pacing. The _ding _of arriving texts. A warm hand resting in his air—not ruffling, not pulling, just kind of casually thumbing through it, the way one absentmindedly thumbs through the pages of a book while reading.

Then waking up at HOMRA.

That's it. The end of the tape. That's all that he can remember of the past _fifteen fucking hours_.

"I'm never getting that shitfaced again," he mutters, dropping his head back down to look at his legs.

Thank God, the messages _do _stop. Eventually—that is, at least twenty centimeters too eventually for Yata's taste. The last two sit on the insides of his thighs, teasingly high up his leg.

On the left, simply: "_F. Saruhiko was here_."

And in the equivalent position on his right, "_took you long enough. pick up your phone._"

"Yata-chan!"

Yata jumps as Kusanagi's voice comes through the door, too close.

"Yeah, what?"

"Your phone's ringing! Caller ID shows Fushimi."

**AN:** not sure why, but i've always imagined saru as someone who's really good at math... anyway, i feel like i've been updating this too slowly, so hopefully updates will come out at least once a week in the future! although with school and things... maybe not... and originally this was supposed to be 7 chapters but now it's probably gonna be more like 15 lolyup.


	7. When Missing

Kusanagi holds the phone with the very tips of his fingers, as if it's contagious. "If he asks you to go out drinking again, might I suggest you refuse?"

"I don't fucking want to go _anywhere_ with him," Yata grumbles, but he picks up the phone anyway. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Rude. You should be practicing your manners for today."

"What do you mean, for today?"

"Where are you right now?"

"HOMRA. Why do you care?"

"Because it takes at least fifteen minutes to get to Café Lieben from HOMRA, not counting traffic, which means you're going to be _late _no matter how much you hurry. Typical. And don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about—I even wrote you a reminder in case you forgot. Or haven't you found it yet?"

_Café lieben 16:00 12/28. _

"Yeah, I found it, and while we're on the fucking topic, I—"

"Okay. Hurry up and get over here. Bye."

"Wait—Saru? Saru! Fuck him, he hung up on me."

"What did he want?" asks Kamamoto.

"He wants me to meet him someplace, and according to him I'm late. Gotta run."

"Why?"

Yata pauses. "What?"

"Why're you going?" Kamamoto shrugs. "I mean, I'm just saying, if I was totally hungover I wouldn't want to go anywhere. Why go to the effort? It's not like he's Mikoto-san."

"Of course he's fucking not! Mikoto-san's beyond comparison with someone low as that!"

"Then…"

"That… I…"

Yata's aching mind pulls a total blank.

Why _is _he going, anyway?

He's vaguely aware that Kamamoto's waiting for an answer. A second, then two ticks by.

Hold on.

"_Fuck_!"

Kamamoto almost falls off the bar stool. "Jesus in a bento! What're you yelling for!"

"…That's a disturbing image, Kamamoto-kun."

"Sorry."

"My skateboard!" yelps Yata, ignoring both of them. "Where is it? Did you put it somewhere?"

A beat goes by.

"Shit," says Kamamoto.

"Exactly."

"Come to think of it, I don't think you came in with it at all. I'll call Kosuke-kun and ask to make sure, but..."

But a minute later, Kusanagi hangs up, shaking his head.

"He says Fushimi-kun didn't have it when he dropped you off."

"You think he hid it or something?" asks Kamamoto.

"It'd be exactly like him," Yata seethes, stabbing the call button on his watch. "That fucking asshole can stick his dick into whatever shit he wants, but if he fucking did something to my—Saru, you piece of motherfucking shit, if you fucking fucked with my skateboard I'm going to beat your ass into ground meat and feed it to Munakata in a Sceptre-asshole-bento!"

There's dead silence for at least three seconds.

"Holy shit, did you actually manage to shut him up?" asks Kamamoto.

"Just so you know, I can hear your fat through the phone," says Saru.

"Oh, fuck you, Saru."

"Likewise. And Misaki, the bill for that'll be at least 3000 yen."

"…What in holy fuck are you babbling about?"

"For the doctor to _fix _my fucking _ear_," Saru hisses. "Christ, I'm surprised you didn't blow a circuit in my phone, you loud-mouthed idiot."

"You fucking deserve it, you fucktard. Tell me what the fuck you did to my skateboard."

"Your skateboard?"

"_MY. SKATE. BOARD," _Yata roars.

"Fucking—" Yata can almost hear Saru wincing. _Score. _When he next speaks, his voice is much fainter, as if he's holding the phone at arm's length. "God _damn _it, Yata, I'm telling you I don't know anything about your skateboard. I didn't do anything to it. Do you not have it right now?"

"Would I be calling you if I did?"

"Well, I'm very _sorry, _but I have no idea what happened to it. Unless—wait."

"Don't tell me, you happened to find it behind your ironing board."

"I don't _iron._"

Yata snorts. You'd think he accused him of getting off to kiddy porn or something, he sounds so frigid.

"I was just going to say, I think you might've left it at Ai's place."

"Ai?" So they didn't go to Saru's apartment last night? Not that he remembers much about it, either way. "Your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend. Ai's—ah, forget it, I don't want to explain it. Do you remember where we went last night?"

"N-…no."

"Oh, that's right, you were wasted out of your mind."

"Look, can you stop changing the—"

"After, like, four shots."

"That's _completely _ beside the p—"

"Four."

"…Saru."

"Misaki."

"I'm going to yell at you again if you don't—"

"115-West-Narai-Avenue-you're-way-too-fucking-loud," mutters Saru, and hangs up.

Yata slams the end-call button on his watch, and ends up slamming his own wrist into the bar hard enough to bruise. Kamamoto starts clapping.

"I don't see anyone performing," Yata barks.

"No, it's just that I don't think I've ever seen anyone shut Saru up before."

"…Yeah, well, it doesn't happen often enough for my liking. I'm off, I'll catch you guys later."

"Good luck, Yata-chan."

He'd better find that fucking skateboard at this Ai person's place, or else Saru's seriously gonna get his ass handed to him.

()

Yata looks at the building. Looks at his watch. Looks at the floor. Looks at the building again.

Nope, definitely 115 West Narai Avenue.

To clarify, 115 West Narai Avenue is dead smack in the middle of a red-light district.

A gaggle of very, very scantily dressed women (boobs-boobs -_boobs-_he is _so _not looking over there) are watching him from the doorstep of the building across the street. Their giggles waft across the street like perfume.

One of them calls, "You lost?"

"_No. _No! I'm f-f-fine!"

"O~kay, whatever you say, mister!" More giggles. "He's _cute_," one of them squeals in an ill-suppressed whisper. "Like a puppy!"

"Are you kidding me? He looks like my little brother."

"Yeah, well, we all know your bro's gonna grow up to be a hottie."

"Nah, I'm pretty sure I used up all the hot genes in the family."

If the tips of Yata's ears get any hotter they'll start giving off steam. Saru _has _to be fucking with him.

Before he can dial him, though, the door to 115 West Narai Avenue slides open.

"Were you planning on picking your jaw up off the floor and knocking, or are we going to have to build an arc to survive your drool?"

Yata doesn't think he's ever seen a woman with as many curves as the one leaning against the doorframe in front of him. She's sexy to the point where it's intimidating. Bedroom eyes and husky voice, the Jessica Rabbit answer to Japan's _moe_ schoolgirl fetish. Whatever words might've been planning to form Yata's response slide right out of his mouth in piles of meaningless mush. His brain completely short-circuits.

They stand there for a few seconds while Yata tries to pick the pieces of his brain off the floor.

"Wait—aren't you that boy from last night? You came here with Saru, right?"

_Fuck. I came to a fucking brothel with Saru? How much worse can this get? _

"I…I think so…"

Quite seriously, she says, "Up for round two already?"

"_Fuck _no!"

She just looks at him.

"Uhhh," Yata amends rapidly. "I mean, um, like no offense or anything, but…yeah. It's just, I, did you"—_escape, escape, find a way to escape—_"like, I think I might've left my skateboard here, maybe?"

She stares blankly at him for a second, before snapping. "Ah, that's right! Someone did leave a skateboard around here. Black, with a flame pattern on it."

"Great! Well, I'll just grab that and be on my way—"

"I sent someone to sell it."

"…_What_?"

"None of the girls said it was theirs, and since none of them could remember a customer coming in with a skateboard, I figured we might as well sell it." Ai laughs. "Don't look like that, Yata—is it Yata?—Yata-chan. The girl I sent only left a few minutes ago; I'm sure she hasn't made it there yet. Lemme just ring her up."

She turns and takes a few steps into the house, then glances at Yata over her shoulder.

"Well, come on. Most of the girls don't bite."

"… right…"

Feeling about twenty times more nervous than he ever has infiltrating some rival gang's turf, Yata cautiously follows her to a crowded kitchen at the end of the hall. While absentmindedly pouring him some English-style tea, Ai dials on the most ancient-looking phone Yata has ever seen. "Sara-chan? About that skateboard—could you come back here? Mhm, he came back. Saru's friend, you remember him from last night. Thanks."

She hangs up. "She'll be back in ten minutes or so."

"Mhm," mutters Yata, face flaming. Ai remains standing at the counter, stirring copious amounts of sugar into her tea. He can feel her staring at him, but there's no way in hell he's going to make eye contact.

_I'm sitting in a whorehouse. An honest-to-God brothel. I'm drinking tea with a madam. _He bites his lip. _Even worse, God knows what the fuck went down here last night. If I asked that stupid monkey, would he give me a straight answer on how far things went? Does _he _even remember? God, what if I'm carrying some disease now? More importantly, that'd mean I lost my—_

"So… you go out with Saru-kun much?"

He starts. "Uh. N-no. Not really. Not at all, most of the time."

"I can tell."

He doesn't know what she means by that, so he lets it drop. Ai's spoon clinks a few times against the inside of her cup. Yata fiddles with the strap of his watch.

"Does he come, uh, visit here a lot?"

"I wouldn't call him a regular, but he's around quite a bit. All the girls know him. Some like him, some don't. The ones who do do because he's always up for a girls' sort of threesome. You know, one girl, two boys."

Yata takes way too large a gulp of tea, chokes, and coughs for a good half-minute. Ai has the grace not to laugh. She waits for him to be finished, then continues blithely, "More fun than faking being a lesbian for the fortieth time, that's for sure."

"Hmrrgh." The parade of unwanted mental images is on a roll today.

"…you don't like talking about sex much, do you?"

"Well… that is, it's not that… I don't, I don't _like _talking about it…"

"No, it's all right. I always thought it was more normal for boys your age to be like you than Saru."

"What, uh, what was he…?"

"Oh, Saru's been hanging around here since high school." She cocks an eyebrow. "Like, _early _high school. Scandalous, isn't it? First time I saw him, I thought he was streetwalking, the little bastard, when he was the one looking for business! I asked him if he'd lost his mommy and, ooh, guess what he did. Pulled a knife on me, the cheeky son-of-a-bitch!"

"The fuck? Really?"

"No joke! I mean, I wasn't scared for a second—the thing was about the size of a paring knife, and the kid was obviously drunk out of his mind, looked like he was gonna start crying or puking any second. I've cleaned off chicken bones with more muscle on them than him. Anyway, you can believe I told him to fucking get lost and improve his attitude or I'd drop him dead in a sewer right then and there. I had a gun."

"…Aren't only the police supposed to have those?"

"Yeah, well… Anywho, he looked in pretty bad shape, so I did him a favor and took the knife off of him before he did something really dumb. Dunno how long after that it was that he came back, but he did. And the rest, like they say, is history."

"…Wow."

"Hm?"

"That perv really fucking got around in high school!"

"Yeah, he had a pretty big—"

Yata coughs.

"…appetite," she finishes, half-smiling at him.

He turns another shade of red. Someone could probably make a fucking wallpaper catalogue out of all the shades his face has assumed by now.

Silence, for another half minute.

Yata can't hold it anymore.

"Um, so, Ai-,er,-san…"

"Just Ai is fine."

"We didn't. Like. _Do _anything last night. Right?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure by anyone's definition Saru was definitely 'doing something'—"

"No, I meant—I mean, like, fuck him—"

"Yeah, exactly."

Yata splutters and nearly forgets what he was about to ask.

"B-but… I mean, us, like with me, nothing…?"

"Oh." She sounds downright scandalized. "Oh, no. Us? You and—oh, no no no, nothing happened. Definitely not. Where'd you get that idea from? Don't tell me Saru told you that—

"No! He didn't—I just—because—I was—"

"Rest assured, dear, nothing happened between you and I last night. I give you my word on it."

Whew. Yata breathes an enormous sigh of relief. Not that—not that he thought anything _really_ could've happened between him and this Ai woman, but—anyway, at least it looked like things didn't _all _go to hell last night. He was probably asleep or something most of the time.

Just then, a gangly chestnut-haired girl darts into the room, clutching Yata's skateboard to her chest. "Hey, Ai. Misaki, totally didn't realize the board was yours!"

"Uh…?" _Who the fuck is that, and how the hell does she know my name? _

Ai says, "That's Sara-chan. Sara took care of you last night, didn't she?"

"Sure did!"

Yata's heart leaps straight back into his throat. "Wait. By take care of, you mean…"

Sara laughs. "You really don't remember anything, huh?"

Yata whirls around to stare at Ai, momentarily forgetting to be intimated by her curves. "I thought you said nothing happened!"

"Well, nothing happened _between you and I_. As for the rest of the girls… I do run a house here, you know."

"Don't worry, I didn't charge," interjects Sara.

"That's not what I'm worried about!"

"Well, what is it then?"

"I—just—did we…?"

She gives him a peculiar look. "Oh, my God. Are you really a virgin? You are, aren't you? I thought Saru was joking about that! Oh, man, I hope I didn't traumatize you or anything."

"_Trauma—_hold the fuck up—"

"Because, not to be mean or anything, but sometimes when a guy doesn't have any experience, the first time can be pretty shocking. I swear, I would've taken it easier on you if I'd known you didn't—"

"Now, Sara, you weren't too rough on him, were you?" Ai winks at Yata. "Sara can be a little playful."

"_Playful?_"

"Play~ful," trills Sara.

Yata feels as if he's being strangled.

"Just… did we do it or not?"

Sara pauses for a long, long time, one fist propped on her hip, the other to her chin.

Eventually, she looks up and says, "I mean, it really depends on what you mean by _it_."

And then Yata just sort of just zones out for a few second, or maybe a few minutes. Call it shock. Call it delayed reaction to losing one's fucking virginity. This—or last night, or whatever—should have been a triumph. The long-hoped-for moment of glory. Instead, he feels he's been hit by a truck: dazed, numb, unsure what the hell just happened—

"—saki?" Sara's voice sounds as if it's coming through water. She's waving her hand in front of his face. Yata blinks once or twice. "Oi, you okay? Can you hear me? You know I'm just messing with you, right? We did kiss, but that was about it—you were so out of it that it would've felt like rape if I'd tried anything else. I swear. Cross my heart and all that."

And then Yata just sort of breathes for a second, while the flood of confused feelings swilling around in his panicked mind gather themselves back up and scoot into the respective compartments from which they came.

"To be totally fucking honest with you, I'm so relieved I could die."

"…O-_kay, _so it was a kiss and, like, _one_ feel, but that was it."

"What the hell!"

"It was over the bra! And over the boxers on my part!"

"Jesus fucking Christ, why didn't you say that up front!"

"Because you're a bigger prude than my grandma!" After a moment, she grins at him. "And that's fine. You're a sweet boy, Misaki. And a pretty decent kisser, even when you're dead drunk—and yes, you can quote me on that one."

What Yata's sure is the goofiest looking grin Shizume City has seen this century spreads across his face. He can't help it. _I'm a good kisser even when I'm drunk, _ he thinks. _Someone thinks I'm a good kisser. _

Suddenly, his watch vibrates. Saru's face in miniature pops up next to a text reading _where are you? hurry up fucking slowpoke =_=_

Sara peers at his watch, then, laughing, grabs Yata's wrist and pulls him close to her. Before he can react, she raises Yata's wrist and snaps a picture of herself planting a kiss on his flaming-hot cheek.

"Tell him that's where you are," she laughs. "Go on, Misaki, and make sure to give Saru some hell from all of us."

You can fucking bet Yata sends that picture.

Saru responds a few seconds later with one word: _classy. _

Yata grins. He knows defeat when he sees it.

He speeds down Narai Avenue with a smile still plastered across his face.


	8. When Threatened

When Yata gets to Café Lieben, he takes one look at the sign outside and almost balks.

Speed-dating is up there with volunteering as target practice for Kusanagi on Yata's list of things that are unpleasant as they can be without getting you killed (in Kusanagi's case, it'd taken a month for Yata to regrow his left eyebrow).

Unfortunately, Yata spies Saru through a window at the same moment as Saru looks up and notices him. He mouths something, probably rude, at him, and waves at him to come in.

He's hardly given a choice—the waves of young people arriving at what seems to be a surprisingly popular event more or less shove him into the café. Before he can figure out left from right, an overwhelmingly cheerful blonde guy has gotten hold of his elbow and is steering him like a grocery cart towards a table.

"Guys, girls, or both?" he shouts over the din.

"What?"

"Okay!"

"Wait—I didn't—"

The guy slaps a sticker on his shirt with enough force to bruise. Yata staggers back a little.

"Good luck!" he shouts, just as a girl wearing a dark-purple wig slides into the seat in front of Yata. The café's so crowded that their knees are nearly touching. She's sort of got that nerd-chic thing going on, the big glasses and all that.

The first thing she says is, "You're by yourself?"

Yata blinks. She sounds so disappointed.

"So are you," he points out.

She glares at him. "I don't _do _that sort of thing."

"…what?"

The girl sighs, crossing her arms. "I really should just have gone to the guys-only section."

Yata can't help it; he looks at her chest to make sure he's not missing something here.

Nope; there's definitely a pair of round, plump—

"Hey! My eyes are up here!"

Obediently, he raises his eyes. "But you're a girl," is all the defense he can summon up.

She rolls her eyes. "Clearly. See ya, buster." As Yata watches, utterly confused, she stands up, hitching her enormous bag over her shoulder. "Better luck with the next…"

Then she goes rigid, her eyes locked on something behind Yata.

Yata turns, half-expecting to see a thug from some rival gang bearing down on him with a bat or something—but no, it's just Saru, although now that he thinks about it he basically qualifies as—

The girl sits back down abruptly, dropping her bag on Yata's foot in the process. Yata yelps—the thing weighs a fucking ton. As he kicks it off with his other leg, a few brightly colored magazines slide out. What does she have in there, a fucking library?

"You're late," says Saru. "Move over."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm fucking sitting here."

"Please. You're so small you qualify for half the seat at best."

"_Hah? _You wanna say that again?"

"There's no need to when you'll probably hear it from every female you meet in this room. Now hurry up and move over, or that guy I was just talking to is gonna come over."

"Who—"

Saru grabs Yata's chin mid-turn and steers his head back the other way. "Don't fucking look, you're gonna encourage him."

"What's your problem with him anyway?"

"He's a massive bore," yawns Saru, bumping Yata so hard with his hip that he nearly falls off the chair. By the time he's gotten his balance back, unfortunately, half the seat's busy being occupied by Saru's bony ass. "There, that wasn't so terrible."

"You know, for someone who could give a toothpick a run for skinniness, you take up a lot of fucking room."

"It's either do this or sit on me."

"Or you could, I dunno, vacate your ass from my seat."

"Or you could stop bitching."

"Or you could stop being a bitch."

"Oh, my God."

The two of them turn at the same time to look at the girl. To be honest, Yata had kind of forgotten she was still sitting there.

"Are you guys, like, for real?"

Saru's eyebrow creeps up a half-centimeter. Their three sets of knees jostle awkwardly underneath the table.

"Like, is this actually happening?"

Yata glances at Saru, trying to confirm if he, also, has no fucking clue what's up with this chick. Oddly, however, Saru seems to be busy giving her some sort of vaguely predatory-looking knowing smirk.

"So, so—lemme get this straight. _You're _gay."

"Bi," says Saru, which draws a startlingly high squeal out of the girl.

"And _he's_—"

"A vir—"

"_Straight,_" snaps Yata, trying to elbow Saru in the side without sending himself tumbling off the chair.

"And you guys are…"

Yata's mouth soundlessly flaps open and closed again, like a goldfish's. After all this time, he still has no fucking clue what the answer to this one is. You'd think he'd have resolved it by now—this, whatever this thing is between them—

"Best enemies," says Saru smoothly, "isn't that right, Misaki?"

The girl squeals again, doing a little jig in her seat. "Okay, please, just please tell me you'd be down for a ménage."

Yata looks at Saru. "A men-what?"

Saru rolls his eyes. "Just be quiet and let the adults do the talking. Seriously, I don't even know how you qualify as nineteen. Clearly they don't teach you a lot over at HOMRA."

"Teach me what?"

Saru sighs and clamps his hand over Yata's mouth. "Ignore him," he says to the girl. "The answer is yes, as long as it's no strings."

"Oh my God. Seriously? One night only, I swear. This is, like, something out of a dating sim. Totally ridic." A gong rings over the chatter—the signal to switch partners. "Hang on, I gotta go ditch my friend. Do _not _move, or I _will _hunt you down with a machete."

"Well, doesn't she seem like a fun one," murmurs Saru as the chick bustles away, energetically damaging ribs with her elbows. "See you in five."

"Wait—tell me what the fuck this ménage thing is! It's a sex thing, isn't it? Saru!"

Saru smirks and melts away into the crowd.

"Fucking come back here! Ah, fuck it."

Maybe he can use his new partner to get out of this somehow. He turns around and sees—no one. Or, more precisely, the air above a small head of tightly coiled, dark blue hair.

He gets a sneaking suspicion.

No.

Standing up slowly, Yata peers down into a very, very familiar expression of scorn.

"Ugh," Reina says cooly. "Why do I always get the ugly ones?"

"Y-you!" he splutters.

"Don't you even remember my name? Rude," and the way she says it is so exactly like Saru that it sends a chill shooting up Yata's spine.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Looking for a date, obviously."

"…right, how old are you again? Four or something?"

"I'm _eight_." Her voice could freeze a stove over.

"Oh, excuse me, you're a grown-up fucking second-grader."

"…_third. _Can you even count?"

"Okay, you know what—"

"Just because _you_ were a grade slow doesn't mean the rest of us—"

"_Hey. _I was in the exact same grade as everyone else my age, okay—"

She looks at him, and says deadpan, "Yesterday on the news the prime minister said that the education system in Japan needs reform. He thinks we should group people by how old their brains are. Mr. Second-grader."

"… y-you fucking little brat..."

"Reina?"

_Great. _Just what he needs—the other one's back. "She's like a fucking clone of you," Yata snaps, turning to look at Saru, but the words wither on his lips when he sees the odd look on Saru's face.

"Uncle Saruhiko…"

After a moment, Saru makes that little tsk-ing noise and turns away, his eyes skittering over the seething crowd. "Your mom's here, isn't she."

"No."

"Come on, Misaki."

"What?"

"She's not," and Reina's voice is nearly whining. "We don't have to see her, uncle,I won't tell her I saw you—just _stay_—"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Misaki, come _on_."

"Hold on," Yata protests, "you can't just leave her here."

"She'll be fine."

"She's _five_."

"Eight!" seethes Reina.

"Whatever! You're a fucking kid!"

"Her mom's here, she'll be fucking okay for five fucking minutes, all right?"

This is pissing Yata off. "Why can't you just talk to your sister? Would it kill you to do that?"

"Don't pretend like you understand what's happening with my family."

"Actually, I think I fucking do, and it's fucking _immature _of you to avoid them when your own fucking dad is in the fucking hospital!"

In the ensuing silence, all three of them hear a call run clear over the heads of the crowd.

"_Reina! _Where are you?"

"Fuck," say Saru and Reina simultaneously, and they both dive underneath the table.

"Hey—what the fuck, guys."

"Shut _up_," and he feels someone punch his ankle—not sure which one. There's a scuffle underneath the table. Yata's legs bear the brunt of the damage, but he can't kick out without fear of damaging the wrong person.

He hears Saru's voice, low and even. "Let go of me."

"No."

"Reina. Let go of me."

"I'm coming with you."

Saru laughs. "Oh, no, you are definitely, definitely not coming with me and Yata."

"I'm not scared of sex."

A pause. Then Saru says in a weird, slightly hesitant tone of voice that Yata has never, _ever _heard him use before, "That's… not the point."

"Yes it is. I saw you guys talking with that girl earlier."

"… How long were you watching us for?" mutters Yata.

"A long, long time."

"So I guess stalking just runs in the Fushimi blood line."

"No, just me and uncle Saru," Reina answers quite seriously.

"Reina, I'm serious. Let go of me right now. You can't avoid your mom forever."

"If you can do it, I can."

"Reina—"

"If you try and make me let go, I'm going to yell really loud, and she's going to come over here." Her mother bellowing "_REINA!_" right after that just adds potency to the threat.

Saru's silence is audible. Yata snickers, and can't help saying, "Having trouble with a little girl?"

"Shut up."

"Heh. Who'd have thought I'd see the day the great Saru-fucking-monkey himself, shut up by a tiny little—"

"Where's the other one?"

Yata turns around so fast his neck makes a cracking noise, but it's just the girl from earlier, who's apparently successfully ditched her friend.

"Um…"

"Good lord, is that a child down there?"

"The deal's off," Saru says.

The look that comes across the girl's face can only be described as demonic. Yata actually thinks he feels the temperature of the air drop by a few degrees.

"What," she says, her voice smelling of violence.

"What deal?" chirps Reina.

"Look, there's a fucking kid with us," agrees Yata rapidly, just now remembering that Saru had signed them up for some kind of weird something with this chick. "Sorry."

"I don't care," says the girl in a very, very even voice. "Fucking lock her in a bathroom. Or kill her or something."

"…h-hey, don't you think that's taking it a little fucking far—"

"You. _Promised. _Me."

Suddenly, Yata finds himself wondering what exactly she carries around in that huge bag that's slung oh, oh so close to his shoulder. There's more than enough room in there for a knife. Or a chainsaw. Or a machete, really. Didn't she say something about a machete earlier?

He throws a _help-me _glance at Saru, but he's too busy trying to peel Reina's little fingers off his arm. The trick is, she keeps switching hands.

"_You PROMISED me._"

"I—I know! I'm sorry! But she just showed up, and now she won't leave, and—"

The girl opens her mouth, tilts back her head, and screams loud enough to shatter glass, "_SE-CU-RI-TY!_"


	9. When Seduced

The cab driver takes a long, long look at the four of them—Yata with his skateboard, oozing punk from his pores; Saru, who, as per usual, is conspicuously carrying an arsenal's worth of weapons for no apparent reason; the girl, chuckling creepily and eying them both with the predatory smile of a leopard as she hefts her car-sized bag over her shoulder; and Reina, clinging to Saru's sleeve with one hand and Yata's sweater with the other for good measure, and throwing murderous glares at both of them.

He glances nervously at the glass panel separating his seat from the rest of the car, mutters "if it weren't such a slow day," and refuses to let any of them sit shotgun.

Reina loudly complains that this doesn't make any sense as Yata yanks at the rusty cab door. "I mean, if we were gonna rob you, we could do it just as well from the back."

Yata rolls his eyes. "You're not helping." He gets the damn thing open and looks at Saru, who says, "Hurry up and get in."

"You first."

"Courtesy's not your strong point."

"Shortest one goes in the middle," Reina says wisely.

"… That would be you, you fucking little brat—"

Then Saru's manhandling him and Reina both into the cab, and Goddamnit if between the creepy chick, Reina's aggressive use of her hard-soled shoes, and Saru's ill-concealed laughter, he doesn't end up in the bitch seat somehow.

"There's no room!" Reina complains.

"Sit on Misaki," orders Saru, the handle of some weapon or other hidden in his jacket jabbing solidly into Yata's side, his thigh a cool hard line against his leg. This has to be the smallest goddamn cab Yata's ever seen. "It won't hurt him; he can't possibly get any shorter."

"_Eh? _What was that, fucking monkey—"

After casting a judgmental stare over all three of them, Reina flounces into Yata's lap. Yata wheezes.

"Fucking Christ, you weigh a shit-ton."

She turns around, her face a mask of fury, and spits at him, "Pervert. You better keep your hands to yourself or uncle'll cut them off."

"Please," Yata snaps as Saru snickers. "I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole if you weren't the one fucking _sitting on me_."

"Well, _he's_ got too many sharp things on him."

Yata whips around to stare at Saru. "You showed her your knives?"

"She asked."

"As if you always do whatever you're asked! Use some fucking common sense, she's fucking five years—_mmph_," and oh man, what is that hand doing on his knee and why, why _why _is it crawling uphill at the speed of a rocket?

He turns around, and the chick sitting on his other side is smiling at him.

"Oh. Oh, _no._"

"Yes," she purrs. Did she actually just lick her lips at him? Who even does that in real life? Well, okay, Saru does sometimes, but that's because he's a fucking psycho. Anyway, it doesn't matter because that manicured hand is still heading north and is about to enter forbidden territory in about—yup, about right there, actually.

He struggles to extricate a hand from underneath Saru's coat or Reina's body or whatever it's stuck under, takes the opportunity to elbow Saru hard in the side—bastard deserves it for getting them into this damn situation—and picks the girl's hand off his thigh the way you'd pick an insect off your food. "You, we're dropping you off somewhere. We are _not _still doing this."

"My name's Momoko, and I don't see the issue."

"Really? Because it's pretty fucking big and it's sitting on me—"

"Are you calling me fat?" says Reina.

"I'll call you fat if I want—"

"Real mature, Misaki."

"Shut up, Saru, or actually, keep your mouth open just long enough to tell her that we're not doing anything."

There's not enough room to turn his head to look, but Yata feels Saru's breath against his neck.

"Aren't we?"

"But—"

"Reina," says Saru smoothly, "if I don't give you back to your mom, you'll go wait in the hotel's lobby, won't you?"

"_Hotel_?" sputters Yata.

"I'll give you my PDA."

Reina narrows her eyes. "Does it have Vegetable Samurai on it?"

"The paid version."

Yata snickers. "You bought Vegetable Samurai?"

"Sceptre 4's money."

"You _bought _Vegetable Samurai?"

Saru clicks his tongue. "As if your taste in games is any better."

"It's better than Vegetable Samurai!"

"Deal," chirps Reina sweetly, and holds her hand out for Saru's PDA, and Yata's last hope of evasion goes down like the Titanic.

()

The bolt on the door clicks shut. It sounds like a bullet sliding into the chamber of a gun.

Maybe that's just him.

"I still, uh, I don't think we should…"

"Still blabbering about that? Unless you're so loud about it that she can hear you from four floors down, I think Reina's going to be A-okay," murmurs Saru, undoing the buttons on his shirt.

"Sh-shut up! Y-y-you're missing the f-fucking point!" he splutters as Saru pulls his shirt over his head in a single smooth sweep, and then the rest of his words fall right out of his mouth.

He's seen Saru shirtless before, but not for a long time, now.

He doesn't remember so many _scars_.

And yeah, Sceptre 4 and a few years and all that, but still, the way the light snags on the thin ridges lining chest and hip and back (isn't he too thin, too?) makes something catch in Yata's throat, pulls his words into the pit of his stomach to roil in confusion. And that one series of white lines stacked like the rungs of a ladder right underneath the hard downward arch of his right rib, isn't that too even, too methodical to be a battle wound?

And of course there's the tattoo, the mess of burn scars like a bad eraser mark over his heart. If it's not healed now, it'll never heal properly.

Saru, he's never been afraid of hurting himself to make a point.

He's staring at him, or back at him, rather.

"Saru…"

"Mmm," and what the _fuck _is that tone of voice and that expression, seriously, and his brain might just short-circuit a little because neither of the other two have much clothing on at all anymore. "Misaki."

Nobody's even done anything yet, and yet Yata's pretty sure half his blood has left his brain.

"W-w-w-w—"

"Get in here."

Somehow he manages to pull a single word out of the fucking hurricane of incoherence that is his mind.

"_NO._"

"What the fuck, Misaki, seriously. Get over your insecurities and get your ass over here."

"Insecurities?" murmurs Momoko, unhurriedly unlacing the front of Saru's pants. "About—"

"His dick~kkk," drawls Saru. "Probably, I dunno. Not like I've ever seen it."

"How cute! How old is he anyway? Fourteen?"

"I'm nineteen!" Yata yells.

Suddenly, Momoko jumps off the bed and palms him through his jeans. Yata can't help it; he screeches like a cat and jumps so fast back that his head slams painfully against the wall.

Saru, fuck him, no seriously _fuck _him, just says, "Assessment?"

"Not a fourteen year old after all," says Momoko, a gleam in her eye.

"See? She'd know. So hurry up and get over—ugh, God damn it, don't press there, woman."

"I don't want to!"

"You might as well. I mean, you already paid for the hotel," notes Momoko pragmatically, tugging Saru's boxer shorts down and God damn it, God _damn _it he's not going to look down there, God fucking damn it. Yata glues his eyes to the ceiling. _See what I do for you, Mikoto-san? _

"What, don't even want to watch? Your friend is no fun, Fushimi."

"He's a virgin," sighs Saru, as if this is some deep and terrible character flaw.

"A virgin! At that age! What's he been doing with his life?"

"Not getting deflowered, apparently."

"I don't want to get de—I don't want to do anything with anyone with you sitting there, fucking buck naked, watching me! That's damn wrong in so many fucking ways!" yelps Yata.

"I didn't know you had a problem with me being naked. I mean, for fuck's sake, we went to high school together. We went through the whole locker room business."

"This isn't a locker room."

"Mmm, no, it's a lot more fun than that. _Ngh._" Momoko's head bobs once between Saru's legs before she emerges.

"Aren't you going to take off your glasses?"

"Why the hell do you care?"

Momoko rolls her eyes at Yata, as if to say, _touchy. _

"I don't take them off around people I don't trust," he says finally.

"Don't take it personally," mumbles Yata. "He doesn't trust anyone."

She shrugs. To Saru: "C'mere."

"Fucking demanding bitch," complains Saruhiko, but he moves his legs willingly enough. "Well, last chance, Misak-_nhh. Ah~ _Misaki!"

"Stop making those fucking weird noises while saying my name, you perverted freak!"

Saruhiko's on his back by now, Momoko half on top of him. Her arm is half-covering his burnt HOMRA tattoo. Propped up on his elbows, he tilts his head back and looks at Yata upside-down.

"Come over here and burn my tongue off for me, then," he says.

And that's fucking it. The last straw. Yata turns and absconds from that situation so fucking fast Saruhiko doesn't even have time to open his mouth again.

He fumbles the lock over, slams the door open, slams it shut, heart thudding fast enough to give a jackhammer a run for its money.

"Hi."

"_FUCK!_" He manages to redirect his punch at the last minute so that it hits the space beside Reina's head. She shoots him a filthy look. "What the _fuck _are you doing here, and how fucking long have you been standing there anyway?"

"I just came up. Why, is something happening?"

"_Nothing's fucking happening_!" he yells.

She lets him stomp about halfway down the hallway before calling, "You're not wearing your sweater!"

He stomps back, grabs her wrist, and pulls her away with him, over her protests.

()

"So…"

"So…"

"Yata-san…"

"Yata-chan… don't you think she's a bit, ah, _young_ for you?"

Face planted flat on Kusanagi's counter, Yata twitches.

"Y….. you guys…."

Sitting on the bar stool next to him, her legs dangling, Reina gracefully accepts the glass of orange juice Kusanagi hands her. She takes a slow sip before speaking.

"Pervert."

"_AGH!_ _FUCK MY LIFE!_"


End file.
